Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-01-13

default, the legal costs OF cOleCtlnS
could be added to the amount due, thus
reimbursing the officer in the event of his
having to go out and make collections.
There is another matter of grave
import connected with this question.
In many counties of this state the
costs rof collecting and assessing,
when. added 10 the amounts paid
them for free-school purposes, moe
than exceed the total revenues of these
counties. The result is that this immense
territory not only does not pay one dol
lar towards the support of the govern
ment, but it actually drews on the other
sections for its educational and legal sus-
tenance. invite the attention of the
legislature to this inequality, and suggest
that an appropriate remedy be provided
for its rectihcation.
SCHOOL, UNIVERSITY AND ASYLUM LANDS.
Under the operation + the act of April
~, 1888, the land board has sold of the
school lands $1,000 600 acres, of the uni
versity lands 81 900 acres, and of the
asylum lands III, 900 acres, at an average
price Of S2sper acre. These lands have
been sold to actual settlers only. in the
act referred TO is found the authority to
lease.
l would remind the legislature that it is
no easy matter to change the ideas and
habits of people when those ideas and
habits have been INDUCED in for ages
without hindrance or restraint. And as
no former administration even attempted
to utilize the peoples grass, or derive a
rental from the unoccupied lands Of the
state government, it is not to be Won
dered at that the laws passed during. my
term of office, on this most important
question, should excite some little oppo-
sition from interested parties, and cause
them to seek means to avoid and defeat
these laws, if possible. People who have
been accustomed TO Craze their cattle free
of charge on the state lands may be slow
to approve the order of things which
aims to make them pay tor benefits con-
ferred; but l have no doubt that in a
very short period the principle of dealing
with the state as one would with an indi-
vldual, will be universally recognized, land
that stoCkmen and others will willingly,
aye, gladly, render to the commonwealth
q faTr equivalent for those privileges
which they have so long enjoyed gratis.
There is no penalty affixed by The act
of 1883 Tor using the public lands with
out authority. nor is there adequate
means provided to enable those who
would execute said law to successfully do
20. The enclosure act of 1884 was not
intended or designed to aid or amend
the act of 1888, bnt was simply enacted
with the view of preventing illegal fence
cutting.
1t was asserted and urged by fence cut
tiers and their apologists that the large
capitalist stock-raisers were monopoliZ-
ing all the grass and enclosing vast areas
of land to which they had no legal right,
and-to meet the emergency of the time
the enclosure act was passed at the spec
ial session of 1884
IL will DE rem mbered that the eXecu-
tive then urged that the unlawful enclos-
ure of public ituds be made q felony,
fence cutting having already been de-
clared penitentiary CffeGSe. Failing in
this effort, the executive suggested that
the crime denounced in the act of 1884
should be prose cuted in some interior
jurisdiction. All these efforts, however,
failed, and the act became g law without
attaching to it any of those necessary
provisions. The fault is not in the sys-
tenn of leasing. De defect is solely and
entirely in the law and creation of the
board.
1t was urged by thoughtless persons
that the g vernon should take the army
and by force destroy these supposed ille-
gal fences, thus Judging for himself CUES
lions that could only be determined by
the courts. This, too, at the very time
when the courts We're deciding that the
law on this subject had not been vic
lated. 1t Is hardly necessary to say this
invitation was promptly defined; for as
well might it be insisted that
where a notorious murderer was
acquitted by the jury, or
where it was evident he would be,
the executive should take him from the
courts and have HIM executed. The time
has no. yet arrived when, in governments
protesting to be republican, the governor
of a state can be invested with authority
to determine beforehand questions that
belong of right to the tribunals of the
country, and l hope such day will never
come. II it should, for one will neither
seek nor accept any such authority. Even
the action here referred to was urged in
the face of the fact that proposition to
engraft such authority in the dill (Act of
1880 was promptly voted down, as it
should have been, by your predt cessors.
Imagine, if you can, the executive of
Texas committing by force of arms the
identical offenses which would send other
citizens to the penitentiary, and for the
discovery of whose perpetrators he was
at that moment Offering large rewards,
THE LEASE law.
Many objections have been advanced,
alb initio, against the principle of leasing
our public lands. 1t is safe to say that
at least one-b half of our vast domain will
not be sold at remunerative prices
within the next fifty years, and unless
they are leased the state cannot possibly
derive any revenue from them. That the
lands are now held at too high figure l
have not the slightest doubt. l am also
well satisfied that large proportion OF
them should be placed on the market at
less than 50 per acre, the present price.
Better for the state were the scale revised,
and better for those ia search of homes
were the figures so reduced as to hold out
an inducement to the actual settler to
people and cultivate our untenanted ter
ritory. Imperfect as the system is now,
we find that the schools derive an annual
revenue of 5000, 600 from leases alone,
ard an annual interest Of 100000 on
sales.
The constitution and laws set apart one
half the public lands for the benefit Of
free schools. l have never known Gas it
was done when had no connection with
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